183 Cases of the Omicron variant are now confirmed in Denmark, local health authorities announced on Sunday (December 5th). This figure was qualified as “worrying” and “worrying”, as it represents a big increase compared to the last Danish estimates. At the latest news, Friday, December 3, the country had only 18 confirmed cases and 42 suspected cases, according to information from the public institute SSI.
However, Denmark is a country at the forefront of sequencing, which enables it to detect cases and variants more quickly and efficiently. The detection of these nearly 200 confirmed cases therefore does not necessarily imply that the Omicron variant is particularly widespread in the country.
Chain of contagion
Prior to this announcement, the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) had a total of 182 cases across the European Union, plus Norway and Iceland.
“We are seeing a worrying increase in the number of cases of Omicron infections in Denmark,” SSI director Henrik Ullum said in a statement. “There are now chains of contagion where the variant is detected in people who have not gone on a trip or been in contact with travelers,” he underlines.
The institute is working “intensely” to further accelerate the rapid results of laboratory tests, so that health institutions can trace the chains of contamination “as quickly as possible”, adds the health manager. “The time we save, we have to use it to vaccinate as many people as possible. Significant immunity gives more solidity to our society, if the Omicron contamination continues, ”he argues.
